Daria Musk Playing To Thousands Worldwide From Her Newtown Studio

By John Voket

Newtown has enjoyed its share of firsts and fame, from the invention of Scrabble and the development of the tea bag to some of its notable residents, including Olympian Bruce Jenner, director Elia Kazan, and Charles Goodyear, whose name is stamped on millions of tires and several blimps.

Now it is time to add Daria Musk to that list.

On July 16 Newtown’s own indie singer-songwriter held what has now been officially called the first pro-level Google+ (Google Plus) Hangout Concert. And as she continues to push the boundaries of innovation using Google’s new social media technology, Ms Musk is enjoying the benefits of being discovered by an international following while inspiring Google’s engineers to further advance their interactive video-chat feature.

Within minutes of launching her first Hangout Concert, hundreds of Google+ users from all over the world were lining up with hopes of getting one of the limited viewing spots for the show. At the same time, Google’s top engineer, Chee Chew, and others took notice and began adjusting the tech on the fly by daisy-chaining the hangouts on their computers to work around the ten-person viewer limit to get more people in, according to a release.

As the novelty of this first-ever occurrence blossomed, newfound fans began a community-organized rotation in and out of the top ten seats so that others could join in. To play for as many people as possible, Ms Musk performed for 6½ hours straight for an audience of global viewers, who interacted with her and each other face to face.

Those “hanging out” with Daria for that first show included viewers in Norway, Argentina, and Ghana.

Blissfully shocked by the reaction while seeing the incredible viability of this new social networking platform, Ms Musk played a second G+Hangout Concert one week later. That marathon cyber-gig clocked in at 7½ hours long and was viewed by more than 9,000 curious clickers and newfound fans in 100 countries.

This time, fans had figured out how to simulcast the performance to an external website called hangoutparty.com for all to see.

“Internet icon Robert Scoble attended the concert and tweeted twice to his 196,000 Twitter followers, spiking the traffic,” Ms Musk said. “Then, Chris Pirillo chimed in and music luminary Steve Greenberg commented as well.”

Some of the feedback she is getting from around the world includes news that a hospital in Portugal fed the live-stream of her concert onto the screens in their ER room to cheer up patients, doctors, and nurses. Ms Musk also learned that Indienation.fm, an independent radio station from Utah, live-broadcast the entire 7½ hours of her latest cyber concert.

Responding to the demand from her new worldwide fanbase, Ms Musk is holding her third Google+ Hangout Concert Saturday, August 20, at 6 pm (EST), which will further push Google’s new social technology forward by featuring embeddable YouTube Live-Streaming Video Players.

To watch the show, anyone can visit www.hangoutparty.com or www.dariamusk.com or drop in through the night.

Capitalizing on this Internet phenomenon, Ms Musk’s first music singles will be released for download that same day. A virtual unknown outside the local area before being discovered on Google+, Ms Musk has yet to release her debut album, now expected to drop this fall.

Her first singles, chosen by her global fanbase, will include a free download of her Google+-inspired song “+1 Me,” which is enjoying even more exposure thanks to a fan-posted YouTube video. She will also release the track “You Move Me,” which Newtowners and visitors got to hear when she performed earlier this year at Newtown’s Relay For Life.

To pay-forward the attention and support Ms Musk has received from her new global fanbase, she has organized a global giveback tie-in with the ONE Campaign for the upcoming Hangout Concert on August 20.

The ONE Campaign, whose most public supporter is Bono of U2, is “a grassroots advocacy and campaigning organization that fights extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa.” Ms Musk’s Hangout Concert will feature a ONE Campaign Call-To-Action asking not for money, but signatures to petition the UN to alleviate the famine in Somalia and other countries the Horn of Africa.

“Giveback is at the heart of my music career and dream of becoming a global artist,” Ms Musk said, “It’s an honor to have the chance to rally a global community to send their love and support to ONE and Africa.”

This young Newtown musician may be the first music artist to be discovered globally live and in the moment through the world’s newest social network.

Based on the praise she is hearing from fans in Ghana, the Dominican Republic, Australia, Germany, France, Ireland, Costa Rica, Prague, India, Malaysia, United States, and the UK, it appears that Daria Musk is no longer one of Newtown’s best-kept musical secrets.

To learn more, visit dariamusk.com.